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National Plan to address elder abuse

5th of March 2018

Attorney-General, Christian Porter, announced on 20 February that a National Plan to address elder abuse will be developed to ensure the protection of older people in our community.

A National Plan was a key recommendation of the 2017 Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) Report: Elder Abuse – a National Legal Response, which highlighted examples of serious physical abuse, financial abuse, neglect and exploitation of older people.

“Abuse takes many forms and can have wide reaching emotional, financial and physical effects on victims”, the Attorney-General said.

“We have all seen or heard stories about older people facing abuse in a variety of circumstances, from financial pressure to provide family members money or change wills to abuse in aged care settings…But right now we don’t have a detailed picture of the problem in Australia. What we do know from overseas studies is that elder abuse effects between two and twelve per cent of older people and it affects both men and women.”